HOW TO TEST FOR COVID

Donald Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social that he won the debate with Kamala Harris, and said that there will be no further debates. Just his general nature, or illusionary as usual, for all polls showed Harris trouncing Trump. From Reuters:

Voters generally gave Harris better marks than Trump on how she carried herself. Asked which of the two appeared more dignified, 56% of people familiar with the debate picked Harris, compared to 24% who picked Trump. Forty-nine percent said Harris "seemed like someone who would listen to me and understand my concerns," compared to 18% who saw Trump that way.

And, oh oh, is he in trouble with The Donald, for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. himself said Harris won and that Independents support for Trump will drop following this disastrous debate.

Fox News host Neil Cavuto said Trump lost the debate by a wide margin.

He decisively lost. He might have made very good presentations on where the economy was, but it was all over the map. This was that first occasion where it wasn’t just a close call, it was a lopsided one.

Trump struck back.

“Neil Cavuto, Fox’s Lowest Rated Anchor, is one of the WORST on Television. I actually prefer the losers at CNN and MSDNC.”

Today, one piece of COVID news. When your throat scratches and you begin to show symptoms of this virus, what do you do.

I am well positioned. I live in a senior's' community, and there is a clinic to get what we need done.
For you others, all those test kits you accumulated during the pandemic are outdated. At-home antigen tests only have a 4 to 6-month self-life. Sometimes the FDA authorizes a longer period, up to 18 months, but not always. Here is an at-home COVID-19 Diagnostic Test site to check, but good luck trying to make any sense of it.
However:

In late September 2024, all U.S. households may order up to four (4) additional COVID-19 test kits, at no charge, at www.COVIDTests.gov. May 12, 2023 - The COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) declared under section 319 of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act expired on May 11, 2023.

Here is where to ask. Not today, but soon.

Incidentally, those home antigen test kits are not exactly accurate. While you can do these yourself and get results in minutes, for certainty, you need to take a PCR test done in a lab. This can take two-days to get results. However, timing is important, for this antigen test is only between 30% to 60% accurate at decting an infection on the first day of symptoms. This accuracy increases to 93% on day four.

What if you still have an old test kit that is not too obsolete? Would it work for the latest subvariants. The simple answer is yes. However, the lines are fainter, making them harder to read.

Another matter to consider is that through a previous infection or vaccinations, you have some immunity. Sometimes mild symptoms do not mean you are infected. The response your body is making can show up as COVID symptoms.

So what do you do if you do show symptoms? Take a test, and even if negative, stay isolated, or at least wear a mask around other people. Take another test at Day Four of your symptoms. If positive, go through the standard protocol, which usually means quarantine for 5 additional days.

Season 19 of America's Got Talent tonight reveals the semi-final survivors. Here is one listing of the top performers. Six of them will join the four golden buzzer winners for the final next week Tuesday. My favorites are:

Sky Elements, a drone team.
Richard Goodall, an overweight, middle age janitor. He should repeat his Golden Buzzer performance at his first audition with Journey's Don't Stop Believin'.
Learnmore Jonasi, a comedian from Zimbabwe.
Solange Kardinaly, quick change artist.

Tropical Storm Bebinca in the East Pacific weakened from 70 MPH to now 50 MPH, but the projection is for Bebinca to become a typhoon later today, and make landfall between Ningbo and Shanghai on Sunday.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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